• Link - Amazon's Mechanical Turk

Updated Oct 3 2008: link

The first thing I saw was, "To help in the search for Steve Fossett, please click here ... ". It is not a joke - it is serious.

The next thing was, "Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it. Learn more." Yes indeed.

From the site's answer to "What is Mechanical Turk":

For businesses and entrepreneurs who want tasks completed, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service solves the problem of getting work done in a cost-effective manner by people who have the skill to do the work. The service provides access to a vast network of human intelligence with the efficiencies and cost-effectiveness of computers. Oftentimes, the cost of establishing a network of skilled people to do the work outweighs the value of completing it. By turning the fixed costs into variable costs that scale with business needs, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service eliminates this barrier and allows work to be completed that before was not economical.

Still not sure what to say about this one. Any ideas ?